Stephen Potter Quotes
1900 - 1969
More Stephen Potter Quotes
The theory and practice of gamesmanship; or, The art of winning games without actually cheating.
Stephen Potter— Title of book (1947)
How to be one up - how to make the other man feel that something has gone wrong, however slightly.
Stephen Potter— Some Notes on Lifemanship (1950) p. 14
— Definition of one-upmanship
"Yes, but not in the South", with slight adjustments, will do for any argument about any place, if not about any person.
Stephen Potter— Some Notes on Lifemanship (1950) p. 43.
— This versatile gambit for disconcerting one's opponent in debate is usually said to have been originated by Potter, even though he had himself said in a footnote to Lifemanship that "I am required to state that World Copyright of this phrase is owned by its brilliant inventor, Mr. Pound". On publication of Lifemanship the critic Richard Usborne wrote to Potter protesting that this stratagem had been invented not by the mysterious Mr. Pound but by Usborne himself, in an article called "Not in the South" published in the May 28, 1941 number of Punch magazine, where the phrase was described as "a formula that let me off the boredom of finding out facts and retaining knowledge". Potter replied, "My God, have I got it wrong? I now perceive with horrifying clearness that I have", but he never corrected the attribution in print. The whole story was set out by Usborne in a letter published in Time magazine, January 5, 1970. [1]
A good general rule is to state that the bouquet is better than the taste, and vice versa.
Stephen Potter— One-Upmanship (1952) ch. 14
— On wine-tasting.
Talk of the "imperial decay" of your invalid port. "Its gracious withdrawal from perfection, keeping a hint of former majesty withal, as it hovers between oblivion and the divine Untergang of infinite recession."
Stephen Potter— One-Upmanship (1952) p. 143
— On how to talk up a faded Cockburn 1897.
How tobe oneuphow tomakethe other manfeelthat something has gone wrong, however slightly.
Stephen Potter— 1950 Lifemanship.
Each of us can, by ployorgambit, most naturally gain the advantage.
Stephen Potter— 1950 Lifemanship.
